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ObamaCare’s Death Knell

Late yesterday, the Administration announced that has decided to unilaterally (and by the way, illegally) postpone enforcement of the employer mandate for a full year, until 2015.

That announcement was the moment when the president’s health care law died. Or rather, its heart stopped beating. It may linger on for a while, perhaps even for years -- but its demise is now unavoidable. For two reasons.

First, the delay has pierced the law’s aura of inevitability, which was its only real strength.

Before yesterday afternoon, we could assume that the law will take full effect on January 1, 2014. But after this announcement, how can we be sure? They seem to think they can arbitrarily (and even illegally) suspend inconvenient parts of the law, any time they want. What's to stop them from "suspending" other parts?

The delay is called "temporary," but it will almost certainly become permanent. This is Washington, after all. What makes a law that's un-administrable after three years of preparation administrable after four? Why wouldn’t today’s policy arguments for a reprieve still be valid a year hence? Why should we expect the same corporations who've complained about this mandate from day one to suddenly acquiesce in it?

Second, the delay has stripped from the law whatever legitimacy it may have had.

Until yesterday, people could assume that, no matter what else you may think of ObamaCare, it at least applies to all of us and will be enforced fairly and evenhandedly. That sense of fairness just went poof!

President Obama’s HHS has granted more than 1,200 ObamaCare waivers to his party’s friends and cronies. His IRS has been caught selectively enforcing the tax laws to thwart or punish his perceived political opponents. And, as we learned from Politico a few weeks back, his Office of Personnel Management is now considering granting special relief from ObamaCare’s burdens to Members of Congress and their staffs.

Ahem. Where’sour waiver?

Can ObamaCare survive this latest mishap? I don't see how it can. A law enforced so arbitrarily and selectively, by an Administration so apparently unprincipled and politically brazen, is not long for this world.

For five straight years now, pollsters have consistently reported that more than half of the U.S. population opposes or feels very uncomfortable with the law. According to the Kaiser monthly health care tracking poll, support for it among Democrats dropped more than 15 percentage points in the months immediately following last year's election. Given the drumbeat of daily "train wreck" and "exploding cost" stories since then (including yesterday's announcement), it's hard to see support going anywhere but down.

Perhaps the Administration can move the numbers a bit with its planned $500 million advertising campaign. But what does it say about the benefits of this new program that they have to spend half a billion dollars exhorting us to sign up for it? And what does it say about the downsides of this new program that they feel compelled to illegally delay it until after the next election?

ObamaCare is flat-lining.

Do not resuscitate.

Dean Clancy is vice president for public policy at FreedomWorks, a grassroots service center to a community of more than 6 million activists who believe in individual liberty and constitutionally limited government. Follow him on Twitter: @DeanClancy.

I believe it is the apathy that has gradually developed among Americans that has given rise to Mr. Obama's agenda. I have watched the steady increase in able-bodied citizens of all ages who can justify and rationalize that it is acceptable to let the Government take charge of their lives through Medicaid and SS Disability. The increase in numbers of those applying for and being granted Disability when they are fully able to work is staggering. When I have turned these individuals down because they have no just cause, their Social Security case worker just sends them names of other specialists that will sign the forms.

Sadly, the system will go broke and those who truly qualify and need services will suffer the most. Keep up your efforts to challenge POTUS and the Senators and our Congress who are not often brave enough to challenge what is going on in our Society, or don't care as long as they get the perks of their jobs.

As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your senators today and urge them to cosponsor S. 1488, Sen. Dan Coats’s (R-IN) the Fairness for American Families Act, which would impede ObamaCare by delaying its linchpin provision, the “individual mandate,” for one year.

For those of us who have been preaching Obamacare doom and gloom since long before it was THE LAW OF THE LAND, the temptation to take a good, long wallow in the Schadenfreude this week is overwhelming. Fittingly, the horrors of the not-so-Affordable Care Act are coming to light for some of its staunchest supporters during the Halloween season.

In the past few weeks, the debate over Obamacare has been dominating the news, and has become one of the most, if not the most heated topics in the nation. Debate will continue, especially as people try to shop for coverage during its rocky launch. But there is one thing that should need no more debate - Obamacare will hurt young people.

Now that the Continuing Resolution has been returned to the House of Representatives with funding restored for Obamacare, the Republicans are faced with a choice. Do they press for defunding now, with the strong possibility of a fight over a government shutdown, or instead push for a delay of the implementation of Obamacare?

Did House Republicans thank him? Not exactly. In a conference call with bloggers earlier today, House Republican Conference members Sean Duffy, Tom Reed and Rodney Davis 'acknowledged defeat' in the effort to defund Obamacare instead setting their sights on an effort to delay the implementation of Obamacare, an effort championed by House Republican Conference chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rogers.